Pentagon can't account for $21 trillion, up from $6.5 trillion (UPDATED W/ REAL ARTICLE -- POST #66)

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https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-cant-account-for-21-trillion/

The Pentagon Can't Account for $21 Trillion (That's Not a Typo)

Twenty-one trillion dollars.

The Pentagon’s own numbers show that it can’t account for $21 trillion. Yes, I mean trillion with a “T.” And this could change everything.

But I’ll get back to that in a moment.

There are certain things the human mind is not meant to do. Our complex brains cannot view the world in infrared, cannot spell words backward during orgasm and cannot really grasp numbers over a few thousand. A few thousand, we can feel and conceptualize. We’ve all been in stadiums with several thousand people. We have an idea of what that looks like (and how sticky the floor gets).

But when we get into the millions, we lose it. It becomes a fog of nonsense. Visualizing it feels like trying to hug a memory. We may know what $1 million can buy (and we may want that thing), but you probably don’t know how tall a stack of a million $1 bills is. You probably don’t know how long it takes a minimum-wage employee to make $1 million.

That’s why trying to understand—truly understand—that the Pentagon spent 21 trillion unaccounted-for dollars between 1998 and 2015 washes over us like your mother telling you that your third cousin you met twice is getting divorced. It seems vaguely upsetting, but you forget about it 15 seconds later because … what else is there to do?

Twenty-one trillion.

But let’s get back to the beginning. A couple of years ago, Mark Skidmore, an economics professor, heard Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, say that the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General had found $6.5 trillion worth of unaccounted-for spending in 2015. Skidmore, being an economics professor, thought something like, “She means $6.5 billion. Not trillion. Because trillion would mean the Pentagon couldn’t account for more money than the gross domestic product of the whole United Kingdom. But still, $6.5 billion of unaccounted-for money is a crazy amount.”

So he went and looked at the inspector general’s report, and he found something interesting: It was trillion! It was fucking $6.5 trillion in 2015 of unaccounted-for spending! And I’m sorry for the cursing, but the word “trillion” is legally obligated to be prefaced with “fucking.” It is indeed way more than the U.K.’s GDP.

Skidmore did a little more digging. As Forbes reported in December 2017, “[He] and Catherine Austin Fitts … conducted a search of government websites and found similar reports dating back to 1998. While the documents are incomplete, original government sources indicate $21 trillion in unsupported adjustments have been reported for the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015.”

Let’s stop and take a second to conceive how much $21 trillion is (which you can’t because our brains short-circuit, but we’ll try anyway).

1. The amount of money supposedly in the stock market is $30 trillion.

2. The GDP of the United States is $18.6 trillion.

3. Picture a stack of money. Now imagine that that stack of dollars is all $1,000 bills. Each bill says “$1,000” on it. How high do you imagine that stack of dollars would be if it were $1 trillion. It would be 63 miles high.

4. Imagine you make $40,000 a year. How long would it take you to make $1 trillion? Well, don’t sign up for this task, because it would take you 25 million years (which sounds like a long time, but I hear that the last 10 million really fly by because you already know your way around the office, where the coffee machine is, etc.).

The human brain is not meant to think about a trillion dollars.

And it’s definitely not meant to think about the $21 trillion our Department of Defense can’t account for. These numbers sound bananas. They sound like something Alex Jones found tattooed on his backside by extraterrestrials.

But the 21 trillion number comes from the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General—the OIG. Although, as Forbes pointed out, “after Mark Skidmore began inquiring about OIG-reported unsubstantiated adjustments, the OIG’s webpage, which documented, albeit in a highly incomplete manner, these unsupported “accounting adjustments,” was mysteriously taken down.”

Luckily, people had already grabbed copies of the report, which—for now—you can view here.

Here’s something else important from that Forbes article—which is one of the only mainstream media articles you can find on the largest theft in American history:

Given that the entire Army budget in fiscal year 2015 was $120 billion, unsupported adjustments were 54 times the level of spending authorized by Congress.

That’s right. The expenses with no explanation were 54 times the actual budget allotted by Congress. Well, it’s good to see Congress is doing 1/54th of its job of overseeing military spending (that’s actually more than I thought Congress was doing). This would seem to mean that 98 percent of every dollar spent by the Army in 2015 was unconstitutional.

So, pray tell, what did the OIG say caused all this unaccounted-for spending that makes Jeff Bezos’ net worth look like that of a guy jingling a tin can on the street corner?

“[The July 2016 inspector general] report indicates that unsupported adjustments are the result of the Defense Department’s ‘failure to correct system deficiencies.’ ”

They blame trillions of dollars of mysterious spending on a “failure to correct system deficiencies”? That’s like me saying I had sex with 100,000 wild hairless aardvarks because I wasn’t looking where I was walking.

Twenty-one trillion.

Say it slowly to yourself.

At the end of the day, there are no justifiable explanations for this amount of unaccounted-for, unconstitutional spending. Right now, the Pentagon is being audited for the first time ever, and it’s taking 2,400 auditors to do it. I’m not holding my breath that they’ll actually be allowed to get to the bottom of this.

But if the American people truly understood this number, it would change both the country and the world. It means that the dollar is sprinting down a path toward worthless. If the Pentagon is hiding spending that dwarfs the amount of tax dollars coming in to the federal government, then it’s clear the government is printing however much it wants and thinking there are no consequences. Once these trillions are considered, our fiat currency has even less meaning than it already does, and it’s only a matter of time before inflation runs wild.

It also means that any time our government says it “doesn’t have money” for a project, it’s laughable. It can clearly “create” as much as it wants for bombing and death. This would explain how Donald Trump’s military can drop well over 100 bombs a day that cost well north of $1 million each.

So why can’t our government also “create” endless money for health care, education, the homeless, veterans benefits and the elderly, to make all parking free and to pay the Rolling Stones to play stoop-front shows in my neighborhood? (I’m sure the Rolling Stones are expensive, but surely a trillion dollars could cover a couple of songs.)

Obviously, our government could do those things, but it chooses not to. Earlier this month, Louisiana sent eviction notices to 30,000 elderly people on Medicaid to kick them out of their nursing homes. Yes, a country that can vomit trillions of dollars down a black hole marked “Military” can’t find the money to take care of our poor elderly. It’s a repulsive joke.

Twenty-one trillion.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke about how no one knows where the money is flying in the Pentagon. In a barely reported speech in 2011, he said, “My staff and I learned that it was nearly impossible to get accurate information and answers to questions such as, ‘How much money did you spend?’ and ‘How many people do you have?’ ”

They can’t even find out how many people work for a specific department?

Note for anyone looking for a job: Just show up at the Pentagon and tell them you work there. It doesn’t seem like they’d have much luck proving you don’t.

For more on this story, check out David DeGraw’s excellent reporting at ChangeMaker.media, because the mainstream corporate media are mouthpieces for the weapons industry. They are friends with benefits of the military-industrial complex. I have seen basically nothing from the mainstream corporate media concerning this mysterious $21 trillion. I missed the time when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said that the money we dump into war and death—either the accounted-for money or the secretive trillions—could end world hunger and poverty many times over. There’s no reason anybody needs to be starving or hungry or unsheltered on this planet, but our government seems hellbent on proving that it stands for nothing but profiting off death and misery. And our media desperately want to show they stand for nothing but propping up our morally bankrupt empire.

When the media aren’t actively promoting war, they’re filling the airwaves with shit, so the entire country can’t even hear itself think. Our whole mindscape is filled to the brim with nonsense and vacant celebrity idiocy. Then, while no one is looking, the largest theft humankind has ever seen is going on behind our backs—covered up under the guise of “national security.”

Twenty-one trillion.

Don’t forget.

That's some crazy shit. Thank you to the scholars and journalists who really dig for stuff like this.

2400 accountants auditing the Pentagon for the first time, ever.

EDIT: jump to post #66 for the article written by one of the two people two discovered this mess. it's less shitposty.
 
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That article is excoriating, holy fuck.

Looks like all that "We can't afford healthcare" bullshit is right out the window. Universal care here we come.
 
They are probably using the money to build schools for girls in Afghanistan.
 
I remember this when it came up before. The language can potentially leave readers with a false impression. It’s not saying that there was 21 trillion in improper spending but rather that the accounting systems haven’t been in place to track the spending. No doubt an amount, maybe even a significant amount, is illegitimate but it’s likely the vast majority of the spending was precisely what it purported to be (much as I would like to believe there’s some vast pot of gold larger than the entire US economy)
 
I remember this when it came up before. The language can potentially leave readers with a false impression. It’s not saying that there was 21 trillion in improper spending but rather that the accounting systems haven’t been in place to track the spending. No doubt an amount, maybe even a significant amount, is illegitimate but it’s likely the vast majority of the spending was precisely what it purported to be (much as I would like to believe there’s some vast pot of gold larger than the entire US economy)

Yeah these "unaccounted for funds" threads/stories always need to be approached very cautiously and with great scrutiny.

I am completely amenable to this administration, what with its proliferation of profiteers and crooks running departments for personal gain, "losing track" of funds is usually/mostly an administrative issue chiefly.
 
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-cant-account-for-21-trillion/



That's some crazy shit. Thank you to the journalists who really dig for stuff like this.

2400 accountants auditing the Pentagon for the first time, ever.


I saw an article about this earlier in the year. There is next to no accountability when it comes to where all this money goes. Their excuse was literally our agency is too big and complicated to audit. And all you hear from all the zealous anti-waste crowd is crickets. Answer? Increase military spending!
 
I remember this when it came up before. The language can potentially leave readers with a false impression. It’s not saying that there was 21 trillion in improper spending but rather that the accounting systems haven’t been in place to track the spending. No doubt an amount, maybe even a significant amount, is illegitimate but it’s likely the vast majority of the spending was precisely what it purported to be (much as I would like to believe there’s some vast pot of gold larger than the entire US economy)

It sounds like you didn't read the article, in which the Pentagon has taken steps to remove all sources of information that could reveal more unaccounted-for money. This isn't just a story about failed accounting practices.
 
I hate these fucking threads. It doesn't mean that trillions of dollars went missing. It means the accounting system for the DoD is garbage. Lots of errors in the article too.
 
I remember this when it came up before. The language can potentially leave readers with a false impression. It’s not saying that there was 21 trillion in improper spending but rather that the accounting systems haven’t been in place to track the spending. No doubt an amount, maybe even a significant amount, is illegitimate but it’s likely the vast majority of the spending was precisely what it purported to be (much as I would like to believe there’s some vast pot of gold larger than the entire US economy)

This is what I'm thinking.

That does leave a lot of room for abuse and negligent spending, knowing that there's no significant paper trail.
 
Classic government mismanagement.

I guess when your only skillset is begging for money and power, you don't really have a grasp at how to control or use it.
 
Well its a good thing Murka is committed to giving even more money to them to lose.

Pentagon gets zhitloads of money to lose and China keeps building more bases to threaten US hegemony. Sounds like a recipe for success.
 
It sounds like you didn't read the article, in which the Pentagon has taken steps to remove all sources of information that could reveal more unaccounted-for money. This isn't just a story about failed accounting practices.

I read it and what you're saying isn’t inconsistent with what I said. I think you may be reading some sort of defense of the pentagon in my post that was not intended.
 
I remember this when it came up before. The language can potentially leave readers with a false impression. It’s not saying that there was 21 trillion in improper spending but rather that the accounting systems haven’t been in place to track the spending. No doubt an amount, maybe even a significant amount, is illegitimate but it’s likely the vast majority of the spending was precisely what it purported to be (much as I would like to believe there’s some vast pot of gold larger than the entire US economy)

Accounting isn't new. And what's "purported" when the adjustments are "unsubstantiated"?

I hear you that the money probably wasn't embezzled. But it's still highly concerning and I'm more inclined to believe they are avoiding disclosure more than they simply can't keep track of a large portion of their expenditures. How do they set an appropriations budget?
 
I read it and what you're saying isn’t inconsistent with what I said. I think you may be reading some sort of defense of the pentagon in my post that was not intended.

My bad. I did think you were defending them.
 
The same people who 'lost' half a trillion in cash.

A law needs to be enacted requiring ALL government funds to be stored and tracked on a distributed ledger that can then be publicly audited.
 
They blame trillions of dollars of mysterious spending on a “failure to correct system deficiencies”? That’s like me saying I had sex with 100,000 wild hairless aardvarks because I wasn’t looking where I was walking.

{<jordan}

We cant question the Pentagon. Surely theyre doing the right thing! Lets give em moar!!!
 
That's ok just cut SS, medicare, and foodstamps to make up the difference.
 
Last year the Pentagon couldn't account for $6.5 trillion... now it can't account for $21 trillion.

...and you believe that? I would question the source. The Pentagon can account for every penny spent. A good chunk of that money going into the 'Black Operations' budget. Not even congress or the president know how that money is spent. Classified. The other part to pay for booze, hookers, and breast implants for the wife or girlfriend.
 

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